God of War

Zeus [addressing Ares]: "To me you are the most hateful of all the gods who hold Olympus. Forever quarrelling is dear to your heart, wars and battles.’"

- Homer, The Iliad

Mars had gone rogue.

At least that’s how all the scientists and the talking heads on TV were framing it. It started just over three years ago, when something that was still not very well understood by the world's leading astronomical experts began to happen on Jupiter. Metis was the first to fall and Adrastea was pulled in directly behind it, and since then at least seven more Jovian moons came crashing down into some distant, unknown landscape of certain oblivion.

Shortly after this all began, professional sky-watchers quickly noted that Saturn’s orbit had gone off course slightly, but Mars simply didn’t have the same level of gravitas and rapidly began meandering off in a new and very unsettling direction. This had been the source of great speculation over the last few years and now the day of truth had arrived.

It was almost 6:00 and the temperature was just over 107 degrees when Connor got home from work and Tess was still sleeping despite the late afternoon sunshine illuminating the bedroom through the slots in the shades. He saw the pill bottle on the nightstand and quietly picked it up, dumped the contents into his hand and counted. There were eight left. Last night there were fourteen. Maybe it didn’t matter but it was still a concerning.

He shook her gently by one shoulder and after a moment she groaned slightly and her eyes slowly crept open. She gave him a weak smile and then rolled over in the bed, turning her back to him.

“Let me just sleep a little bit longer, babe. I had a really rough night. I don't want to think about it. About any of it."

Connor quietly left the bedroom but made a point of fully opening the blinds before he did, eliciting another quiet groan from the rustling, amorphous shape beneath the comforter.

In the kitchen he searched for something halfway decent to eat. The shelves at the local groceries had grown increasingly scant over the last few weeks so his choices were limited, but there were eggs and some ham and cheese so he decided to make an omelette. Then he looked towards the bedroom door for a moment and decided to make two.

He powered on the TV and it was tuned to the evening news, and they were talking about Mars. Of course they were, as if there were something new and relevant to say on the matter at this point. All life on this planet might perish forever in the next twelve hours, but just in case that didn't happen the news networks needed to maximize ad revenue. He thought about shutting the TV off to put on some music but he just let it play while he focused on the eggs.

All right, people. The big day is here. By midnight tonight we will know for certain if this will be the exhilarating close call that most of us are expecting or, perhaps, something else. Perhaps something very different. But we are not in the business of fear mongering here and obviously you have all been following this news for a long time. And while there have been some disturbing events over these last few weeks - Connor found this to be a distinctly understated way of referring to the rapid breakdown of critical infrastructure, mass suicides and violent social unrest taking place all over the world right now - we will all know our fate soon enough and I for one am confident that tomorrow will be a new and promising day. I know most of you feel the same way. Life will go on.

Okay, so what do we know for sure at this point? First and foremost is that by approximately 11:30pm East Coast time tonight our people at NASA, and various other astronomical agencies and experts around the world, will know for sure if Mars will be pulled into our gravitational field resulting in a cataclysmic global impact, or if it will simply pass by us peacefully and harmlessly in the nighttime sky, as most are predicting, leaving behind one of the most dazzling celestial displays ever witnessed since the dawn of mankind. From there we will presumably observe its slow descent into the center of the sun over the course of the next few years.

The blind optimism was just stunning. How could anyone know? How could anyone possibly know?

Another thing that we know with some degree of certainty is that in the unlikely event of a worst case scenario, the scientific community generally agrees that what is most likely to happen is a fairly sudden planetary collision. Much like two magnets coming together, this will start slowly but increase in speed rapidly once it begins. There has been much speculation about various precursor phenomena that might precede such a collision - we have heard about everything from strange wildlife reactions to sudden seismic and/or volcanic activity in the hours leading up to impact - but clearly this is an unprecedented event and there is really no way to know for sure what exactly will…”

Connor laughed at this sudden contradiction and ignored the rest of the news report as he finished cooking. Would the powers-that-be in this world really just come right out and tell us if our days were truly coming to an end? He doubted that very much. What good could that possibly accomplish? He pushed this thought out of his mind, or tried to, and a short time later he killed the TV and called out towards the bedroom.

“Hey Tess, dinner’s ready. Come and eat!”

He knew she wouldn’t. He would have to go back in there and rouse her, and then she would probably just pick at her food and push it around the plate for a while before lighting a cigarette. Her weight was easily under 120 pounds now. Probably closer to 110, which was lower than it had ever been since they first met. He had to get some food into her. He had to assume that tomorrow still mattered. He had to believe that much, or pretend that he did at least.

Back in the bedroom he gently shook her by the shoulder again. “Hey Tess, I made us some ham and cheese omelettes with chopped chives. Let’s go eat. Come on. Get up.”

It took her a few minutes but the food was still warm when she took a seat at the small dining room table beside him. As expected, her appetite was limited but she slowly ate about half of what was on her plate in small bites, which was good enough he supposed. Connor started up an old album by The Clash - aka "The Only Band That Matters" - and turned up the volume on the living room sound system, hoping to drown out, or at least minimize, the increasingly frequent sound of sirens coming from the street outside. The Intro to London Calling began piping through the speakers.

“I saw on Instagram this morning that a lot of people are going down to the park to see the big show tonight. I think Missy and James and a few others are meeting up there later. What do you think?”

He shook his head.

“I think there might be too many people there, and I think we should consider how people might react if…things don’t go well. I was thinking that maybe we should just watch it from up on the rooftop instead? Just me and you?”

She thought about it, nodded and lit a cigarette, a bad habit she broke 4 years ago but recently restarted. He carried the plates back into the kitchen, reached into the fridge and returned with two bottles of beer, placing one in front of her, which earned him a tiny smile.

Several hours and several bottles of beer later the sun had set and they were slouching on the living room couch watching the end of some B-grade art house film on Prime. Or at least Connor was. Tess had fallen asleep somewhere towards the end of the confusing second act. He checked the time and gently roused her from sleep as the closing credits rolled on the TV screen.

She slowly rose from the couch and headed towards the bathroom. As soon as the door closed Connor rose from the couch, went into the bedroom and removed his Beretta 9mm from behind the nightstand. He checked the cartridge and then tucked the pistol into the back of his jeans and covered it with the trim of the blousy Detroit Red Wings hockey jersey he was wearing.

There were more people up on the roof of the apartment building than he had expected but the sounds coming from the park down the street indicated a much larger gathering. No one was going to bed early that night. He took Tess by the arm and they drifted into the least crowded area of the rooftop and set up their beach chairs, hoping the herd of sky-watchers wouldn’t grow too much thicker around them.

He was just taking a sip of his beer when he heard the quiet rattle of the pill bottle in Isabel’s hands. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her pop two more and then he gently took the dull orange plastic container from her and looked inside. There were just four left now.

“You know they won’t authorize a refill for another few weeks, right? Assuming the pharmacy still has it in stock now, which I doubt.”

She didn’t look at him, her eyes fixed on the northern sky.

“Maybe it won’t matter,” she said quietly, in a near dreamlike state, before lighting another cigarette. Her neck looked so thin, her eyes glassy.

Maybe she was right. Maybe it wouldn’t matter. He took his phone from his pocket to check for any news updates on the event, but there was no service now.

He could hear dogs barking from what seemed like every direction. A flock of small birds alighted on the railing to his right, then took wing and circled around in a confused pattern before landing again. A few moments later they repeated this same odd behavior, continuing it several more times.

Then the sound of fireworks, or possibly gunshots, came from the direction of the park down the street. He glanced at Tess but she didn’t seem to notice any of it, lost in her own thoughts. A few more loud pops came from the direction of the park down the street, then a few more in response, and Connor knew they weren’t fireworks.

The Greeks had been right, apparently. While they and the ancient Romans both worshipped a deity known as the God of War, the Romans called him Mars and they revered him as the proud and valiant protector of all mankind. The Greeks, however, named him Ares, and they viewed him as the volatile and unpredictable spirit of battle, bloodshed and mayhem. He was not widely worshipped in Greece. He was feared.

Connor looked up at the massive red celestial body swimming through the strangely illuminated nighttime sky, and then he removed the pistol from his jeans and held it discreetly in his lap, the bottom of his hockey jersey concealing it from view. He could now see the subtle changes in proximity clearly enough with his own eyes - he could even feel it, deep down in his stomach - as it began approaching more rapidly, projecting a deep, throbbing vibration that was steadily increasing with each passing minute.

Many of the people gathered on the rooftop were clearly sensing this too and some were starting to cry while others slowly departed in silence.

Connor didn’t bother checking his phone again. He didn’t need any news updates from the so-called experts. The angry crimson planet was clearly drawing closer, readying itself for battle. It would not simply pass by peacefully in the nighttime sky. It hadn’t come for peace and there was no longer any room for rational doubt about that.

Tess nodded off in her beach chair and Connor just stared up at Mars for a long time, thinking that it really should have been named Ares all along.

THE END